A long-anticipated development in Germany has come to pass. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has emerged as the leading party in Thuringia, surpassing its rivals in the state elections. This result marks the first time since the post-Hitler era that a far-right party has won control of a state government.
Founded in 2013 by a group of politicians and economics professor Bernd Lucke, who had left the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), one of Germany's centrist parties, the AfD has consistently achieved significant results in the elections it has contested. The sole exception was the 2021 German federal elections. However, those familiar with German politics recognized this setback as only temporary.
The AfD secured victory in Thuringia, one of Germany's smaller states, and came in a close second in Saxony. The Islamophobic and Turkophobic AfD surprised observers who expected it to have a contentious relationship with Israel due to its far-right extremist roots. They viewed Hamas’ Oct. 7 operation as an attack not only on Israel but also on Germany. It was only in 2018 when Rafi Eitan, a member of the Mossad team that captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the key figures of Hitler's regime, addressed an AfD congress.
The AfD has become a significant force in German politics, shaping it as a key player in the rising pro-Israel, Islamophobic and Turkophobic right-wing bloc in Europe. The Christian Democrats, from which the AfD originated, have adopted more hardline positions to avoid losing votes to the AfD. The Greens, ostensibly on the opposite side of the political spectrum, rhetorically oppose racism but have adopted Islamophobic and Turkophobic stances to compete with the AfD.
In 2017, following the AfD's success in the German elections, I wrote: “Imitations keep the original alive. In other words, as racism moves into the mainstream discourse, voter behavior shifts toward the racist party. Artificial concerns dominate the agenda and translate into votes ... Racism is both Europe's trajectory and its “new normal.” It has always been so, but today, this truth is rising even more with socio-economic concerns.”
In the intervening seven years, we have witnessed a race among racists and politicians who vie with racists to avoid losing votes to them in European countries, especially in Germany, France and the Netherlands. Today, it is clear that Europe is waiting for an opportunity to unleash the racism it has harbored for centuries. After all, the AfD was not present in German politics when the terrorist organization National Socialist Underground was founded in Germany, nor when it committed murders against Turks while being shielded by German state institutions.
Today, racism is as dominant in Europe as it was before the World War II. This time, Muslims and particularly Turks, have been chosen as the enemy. This has been the case for nearly the last thousand years – “all quiet on the Western front.”
